


Runaways

by MrProphet



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 12:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10697319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	Runaways

The signal went out by owl and they came to the Burrow that same night. They came swiftly and in secret, flitting through the night on brooms, Apparating from the shadows or materialising in a viridian flash of Floo Powder. The most important were the last to arrive, stepping out of thin air as they let the invisibility cloak slip from their backs. 

“Is everyone here?” Harry asked in a whisper.

“Yes,” Hermione replied; she was almost breathless with excitement as she held out her hand. “Come on, Ginny! Your mother’s waiting.”

Ginny grasped Hermione’s hand tightly and they hurried into the house.

“Girls, eh?” Ron quipped. “They always take these things so seriously. Not like us; right, H…?”

“Don’t say it!” Harry cautioned him. “Don’t say my name; not out here.”

Ron clapped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry, mate,” he mumbled through his fingers.

“Anyway; speak for yourself,” Harry went on. “The butterflies in my stomach have butterflies in their stomachs.”

Ron dropped his hand and grinned. “Come on, then. George has brought a bottle of thirteen-year-old firewhiskey. A glass of that should settle your nerves.

“Settle them? Pickle them, more like,” Harry laughed, but he let Ron lead him into the kitchen of the Burrow. “And you managed to get everything?”

It was George who answered. “Firewhiskey, butterbeer, rumblerum, gigglegin; everything.”

Angelina slapped her fiancé on the arm and then enfolded him in an affectionate headlock. “We got everything,” she assured Harry. “And I do mean  _everything_ ; we cleaned out the Black Room. Every cloaking charm and piece of sneakery or counter-sneakery that Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes ever produced under contract to the Ministry.”

“And some that weren’t,” George added from his wife’s armpit.

“There are parts of the Department of Mystery which aren’t as well-shielded as this house tonight,” Arthur Weasley assured Harry. “And I should know; I’ve been in most of them.” He strode forward and shook Harry by the hand. Harry was pleased to feel something of the old firmness in Arthur’s grasp; he had taken a long time to recover from his injuries at the Battle of Hogwarts.

“And the priest?”

Arthur shook his head.

“How many times, Harry,” Ron laughed. “We don’t have a priest, we have a lector, and yes, we do have a lector. She’s getting set up with the others in the garden. If you’re happy with the arrangements and you’re sure you don’t want that firewhiskey, we’ll go out and wait for Ginny to finish getting ready.”

“I think if I go out there smelling of firewhiskey then Ginny will just turn around and head straight back up the aisle,” Harry said. “I’m ready; let’s go.”

The marquee was a simple affair and the congregation was small; just the Weasleys and a few close friends – including Luna, Neville and Hannah, and the other survivors of Dumbledore’s Army.

“Just think what you could have had,” Ron whispered. “St Paul’s Cathedral, the Grand High Lector of Britain, Ambassadors and Ministers and…”

“And every reporter from here to China,” Harry finished. “I know what we could have had; that’s why we’re here. Compared to that, explaining to Kingsley Shacklebolt that the wedding of the year has already happened will be easy.”

George and Angelina took their seats alongside Molly Weasley, while Arthur went up to wait for Ginny and Ron accompanied Harry to the front of the marquee.

“Honestly, Ron; I just couldn’t bear it,” Harry went on. “It felt like everyone was going to have a say in how we got married except for Ginny and me. And you should have seen Ginny; she was tearing her hair out every time they asked her to come for another dress fitting.” He looked around at the coarse, gnome-filled grass and rough canvas around him, and back at the ramshackle Burrow. “This is what  _we_  want.”

“This?” Ron asked.

At that moment a small band – a group of Bill and Fleur’s friends – struck up a simple wedding march. Arthur Weasley stepped out of the house, but Harry saw only Ginny. She walked with one hand on her father’s arm, wearing her mother’s snow white wedding dress. Her hair was coiled on top of her head and topped with a simple silver band. She looked radiant.

“Oh yes,” Harry breathed. “This is what I want.”

Ron looked past Ginny to Hermione, looking quite splendid in her lilac bridesmaid’s dress. He rubbed his wedding ring like a good luck charm. “Amen,” he murmured.


End file.
